Ah, well, TFotR, then. While that film did have a couple flaws of the sort that I do not believe TRotK had, it also did not leave me thinking that there were huge gaps in the story that the DVD would have to fill in.

"Sympathy must precede belligerence. First I must understand the other, as it were, from the inside; then I can critique it from the outside. So many people skip right to the latter." -- Steven D. Greydanus
Now blogging at Patheos.com. I can also still be found at Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. See also my film journal.

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I don't know if it's because I never read the books but I felt out-of-the-loop during the first and last films. Personally, I think a book is a book and a movie is a movie. Even if the movie is based on a book it should be able to stand on its own apart from the book. I think Joy Luck Club is a good example of this - the book is great, the movie is great and you don't need one to fully appreciate or understand the other.

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Seems as good a place as any for this. In today's mail came a special collector's edition of Entertainment Weekly devoted to LOTR (since ROTK comes out in video tomorrow). Includes stuff on actors, plots of each film, what's in the extended editions, etc. Only ads are in or near the covers. It's basically a 76 page ad for LOTR DVDs.

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Interests:film and music (obviously), literature, history, walking through gardens, strolling through art museums, chatting with the good folks here, trying not to stress out, daydreaming, spending time with family and friends, yoga (when I'm being good), surfing the Internet, learning as much as I can as quickly as I can about whatever interests me

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Interests:I'm not entirely sure what I believe or what I can be categorized as. I'm just a Christian. I have many interests and passions but very little attention span, and I bounce back and forth between projects, never really finishing any. I love to travel but can't afford to go very far for very long. Cardinal's baseball is the best. I like cheesy musicals. I want to write but have terrible grammar. Does that matter?

In my opinion, the magazine isn't really that great. Almost all the information in it has already been covered by the DVDs extras and the internet.

To answer Alan's question, ROTK felt a bit rushed to me, except for the Arwen parts. To me, those could have been left out altogether and I wouldn't have cared, but that's just a personal quibble. I really would have liked to have seen more between Theoden and Merry, for example. The poor hobbit was just left "dangling". I believe ROTK:EE will fix a lot of that rushed feeling though.

I really liked the extended version of FOTR. I think it helped flesh out the story even better than what it originally was. The extended version of TTT felt more like an homage to the fans--there were parts that I loved seeing, but seemed more like an indulgence, rather than actually helping the story. Pippin and Merry's discovery of the food, for instance. Great scene, but rather unnecessary for the movie, I think.

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Interests:I love (in no particular order) film, books, history, golf, and a good game of Settlers of Cataan... okay, Knights and Cities of Cataan IS the better game.
Happily married with 3 kids, one grandchild!

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Interests:I love (in no particular order) film, books, history, golf, and a good game of Settlers of Cataan... okay, Knights and Cities of Cataan IS the better game.
Happily married with 3 kids, one grandchild!

That was the week-long showing of the extended tFotR, then a week-long showing of the extended TTT, followed by the one-day marathon, right? (I went to the marathon, and would be sorely tempted to do so again if it were repeated. That's the way to see the trilogy!)

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Interests:I'm not entirely sure what I believe or what I can be categorized as. I'm just a Christian. I have many interests and passions but very little attention span, and I bounce back and forth between projects, never really finishing any. I love to travel but can't afford to go very far for very long. Cardinal's baseball is the best. I like cheesy musicals. I want to write but have terrible grammar. Does that matter?

Tim, that's what I did when I went to Toronto last December for the ROTK premiere. In the morning we watched the extended version of Fellowship, had an hour and a half break, then watched the extended version of Two Towers, had about an hour break, then watched the premiere of ROTK. It was fantastic, though very long.

I don't know if I could make it through another marathon, considering there's supposed to be an extra hour on the extended ROTK. But it would be very tempting.

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Interests:I love (in no particular order) film, books, history, golf, and a good game of Settlers of Cataan... okay, Knights and Cities of Cataan IS the better game.
Happily married with 3 kids, one grandchild!

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Interests:I'm not entirely sure what I believe or what I can be categorized as. I'm just a Christian. I have many interests and passions but very little attention span, and I bounce back and forth between projects, never really finishing any. I love to travel but can't afford to go very far for very long. Cardinal's baseball is the best. I like cheesy musicals. I want to write but have terrible grammar. Does that matter?

When I first saw The Fellowship Of The Ring and The Two Towers a few years ago, I thought that they were both four star movies, but, to my eyes, at least, these films have aged badly, and the simpering performances (particularly from the actors playing hobbits and elves) now drive me up the wall. There is an air of gayness about the whole enterprise.

Also, as someone who has never read Tolkien, I find myself a little confused by the nuances of the plot. For example, what purpose does Arwen serve exactly? Yes, she's a cutie with a rather provocative overbite, but that's hardly enough reason for Jackson to keep serving up protracted flashback scenes of her mincing about with Aragorn or her pointy-eared father - scenes that bring the narrative to a grinding halt! What exactly does she do after the exciting horse chase in part one? Anything?

And does Aragorn actually need two girlfriends? Isn't he heterosexual enough? Isn't there plot enough?

And where the hell was Christopher Lee in The Return of the King? The new dragon-riding nasty in black armour and the Elephant Man wannabe were nowhere near as scary as the artist formerly known as Drac!

A film can be badly made, or have stupid dialogue, or an illogical storyline, and still be interesting or fun to watch if we are willing to put our brain on hold (think of Land Of The Dead, Signs, or Dreamer, for example), but dullness is, for me, a film's ultimate crime, and The Return Of The King is tedious. It seems to consist of nothing but people hitting each other with swords (and this goes on for over three bloody hours!). Whenever something breathtaking occurs (e.g. the attack of the spider, the undead charging from the galleys, the eye of fire cutting through the night sky like a beacon), it is immediately derailed by yet another twenty minutes of battle, or, worse, another scene of Sam arguing with Golem, or Frodo collapsing in a big gay heap over "his burden".

And then to cap it all off, we get Annie Lennox crooning over the end credits. Hellish! lol.

We are part of the generation in which the image has triumphed over the word, when the visual is dominant over the verbal and where entertainment drowns out exposition. We may go so far as to claim that we live in an age of the image which is also the age of anti-word and potentially is the age of the lie. ~ Os Guiness

So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10:17)

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Saruman does have a big scene in the extended version of Return of the King, but I don't see any reason for you to bother with that version since you find the films so unpleasant.

Most of the stuff with Arwen was not in the novels and is, I agree, flimsy and unnecessary.

And I agree that parts of Return of the King wear on the viewer, and that's the episode that hasn't aged so well for me. But the parts of the story that Jackson got right are more than enough for me to be glad it was him who finally brought it to the screen.

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I am wondering if the excesses of The Return of the King have turned me against the first two instalments, Jeffrey. I rather enjoyed The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers upon their initial release, but now I tend to view the trilogy as one film.

We are part of the generation in which the image has triumphed over the word, when the visual is dominant over the verbal and where entertainment drowns out exposition. We may go so far as to claim that we live in an age of the image which is also the age of anti-word and potentially is the age of the lie. ~ Os Guiness

So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10:17)

"Sympathy must precede belligerence. First I must understand the other, as it were, from the inside; then I can critique it from the outside. So many people skip right to the latter." -- Steven D. Greydanus
Now blogging at Patheos.com. I can also still be found at Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. See also my film journal.

"Sympathy must precede belligerence. First I must understand the other, as it were, from the inside; then I can critique it from the outside. So many people skip right to the latter." -- Steven D. Greydanus
Now blogging at Patheos.com. I can also still be found at Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. See also my film journal.

"Sympathy must precede belligerence. First I must understand the other, as it were, from the inside; then I can critique it from the outside. So many people skip right to the latter." -- Steven D. Greydanus
Now blogging at Patheos.com. I can also still be found at Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. See also my film journal.

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My least-favorite scene - and one of the places where he departs from Tolkien the most - the cheapo-thriller "dead" sequence. It would have been far more believeable to me if he'd stuck with the feelings of dread experienced by the characters, etc.

Too right you are! In my humble opinion, the dead should have never even spoken. It would have made them way more terrifying.

I'm gonna have to say that I'm not overly fond of TTT or ROTK ... particularily with the added backplot of Aragorn not wanting to be king. I acknowledge their strengths, I'm just not overly fond of them.

FOTR, however, I watch over and over, because it's so great. Jackson was so concerned with special effects and design that he let almost all of the Tolkien-ishness come through. In other words (because that didn't make any sense), he didn't have an agenda for the film, so Tolkien's came through almost unscathed.

On the other hand, he (or at least, the other writers) seemed to have one for TTT and ROTK.

Just like Andrew What's-his-name, director of Narnia. Only not as much so.

To me, truth is not some vague, foggy notion. Truth is real. And at the same time, unreal. Fiction and fact and everything in between, plus some other things I can't remember; all rolled into one big "thing." This is truth, to me.

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Agreed on all counts here. TTT and ROTK aren't "bad" movies, but my feeling is that they largely miss the boat.

I wouldn't really say that ... in terms of "missing the boat". Jackson's percentage of things he got right is way larger than the percentage of things he got wrong, in my books, but others may disagree. I simply don't like ROTK and TTT as much as FOTR, just because I enjoyed FOTR more, regardless of how true it was to the book ( though for the record, out of the three films it probably stays the most true to the book).

OTOH, for me, the books themselves seem to be on a (partly) downward slide after the company leaves Lorien - that feeling of a world that's gone forever hit me hard when I 1st read the trilogy, and it's never really left. (Not to mention that Frodo and Sam are going through their own personal hell, which makes for grim reading at times.)

Here we encounter rough territory, when we actually start assessing the BOOK (books?). For the most part, while I found it tough going often, I believe the book(s) to be by far superior to the films ... though, once again, some may disagree. However, that might be a topic for the "Books" forum, so I won't say much more, except ...

Also, as someone who has never read Tolkien, I find myself a little confused by the nuances of the plot.

Invisible Dude, I strongly suggest you read the books. You will find them vastly superior. Or maybe you won't, in which case the discussion is pretty much over for me.

To me, truth is not some vague, foggy notion. Truth is real. And at the same time, unreal. Fiction and fact and everything in between, plus some other things I can't remember; all rolled into one big "thing." This is truth, to me.

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Invisible, there's a lot re. Boromir, Faramir and Eowyn that didn't translate well in these movies. I'd also recommend reading the books.

I think Sean Bean issued a fabulous performance as Boromir, elevating the part over Tolkien's characterization. Part of the reason why I (even I, who love all three films dearly) think the films slip a bit in 2 & 3, is that Sean Bean was killed in Part 1. What a magnificent Aragorn he would have made.

To me, truth is not some vague, foggy notion. Truth is real. And at the same time, unreal. Fiction and fact and everything in between, plus some other things I can't remember; all rolled into one big "thing." This is truth, to me.